1972 Trailhopper Restoration
Initial tear down showed many years of neglect.
Motorcycle restorations come in many shapes, sizes and degrees of completion. Usually the bike will tell you what it needs; A full ground up, all original nut and bolt showroom restoration. Or maybe fresh motor internals, a home sprayed paint job and a lot of elbow grease. For my 1972 Suzuki MT50 Trailhopper I chose to to keep everything original, replacing parts with only OEM Suzuki hardware from the kickstart rubber sleeve with the recognizable “S" symbol embossed, to the grips, levers and piston. Many things from the 1972 minibike were simply cleaned, polished, or repaired and stayed on the bike, keeping it true to its almost 50 year old roots. One example would be the tires. To make this what many would consider a perfect showroom piece the tires would need to be brand new original replica’s, but the existing rubber had too much character to simply toss in the trash. The years did bring on some small cracks in the sidewall, but not overly noticeable and afterwall, I did plan to get at least a few rides in when I was done, so those brand new replica tires would loose there appeal almost immediately.
Complete motor before.
Complete motor after.
Where did this bike come from and why did I decide to put my time, energy and money into a bike that was only produced for three years in the early seventies? It comes down to sentimental value. My dad, Robert Hett, had wanted one of these bikes for a few years to fix up and ride around his farm. He scoured the classifieds regularly and eventually came across this heavily neglected but barn kept option. It was one province over from where our family lives, but as luck had it I was travelling to an enduro race in the area just the next weekend. He contacted the seller, made the deal to the tune of $300 and I made plans to detour on my way home to pick it up. This bike wasn’t a great base for a quick restore and ride project, but at the very least there would be some useful parts throughout and in the meantime the hunt would continue for a more suitable restoration platform. Now, to make a long story short, my dad was diagnosed with cancer before he ever got the chance to work on this bike. After being diagnosed his hospital visits and chemotherapy took over and I decided to bring the bike home with me and get to work for him. I was recovering from a broken foot and ankle at the time and spent the next few months sourcing parts from different corners of the globe, studying original sales brochures to find the proper cable routing and sticker placement and getting my hands dirty.
First things first, will it run. After replacing the spark plug and checking connections I hooked the carburetor up to a makeshift bottle and tube full of fuel. To my surprise and excitement I was able to get the little blue beast fired up! It bellowed smoke from the exhaust and sounded like my missing 10mm socket was hidden in the motor clanking around, but it ran. I even shifted into the first of three gears, which was met with a rough almost grinding sound. I shifted to second, then third, both silent and smooth. Back down to first and the sound returned before shutting down the motor. Now the tear down could really begin.
Re-assembly.
I ordered parts as soon as I could find them. OEM bolts, gaskets, o rings, throttle and brake cables, carb rebuild kit, if it popped up on ebay I grabbed it. Some parts were even available from my local Suzuki dealer, they got me a new piston and ring set and some other goodies. Online I found generic rubber covers for the kickstart lever, shifter and footpegs, but this bike originally came with Suzuki branded pieces with the “S” logo on them, so I had to have the correct pieces.
The bike was dirty. Real dirty. It looked like someone had poured a jug of used oil over the entire bike then rubbed dirt into every crevice they could. After some heavy cleaning and some sacrificed toothbrushes I had it stripped to the frame and the motor was on the bench. I tore it apart, first removing the cylinder and piston before splitting the cases to inspect the transmission. I found the broken transmission cog for first gear immediately and lucked out on finding a used transmission for the same motor. I had to buy the entire set, but only needed the one gear. Luckily the crank had no play and was in good enough shape to stay together, and the motor was re-assembled with a new piston, ring, gaskets and other necessities.
Rob and Malcolm, Father and Son. This is Rob’s first time seeing the finished bike. This photo was taken while he was on his way to another Chemotherapy stay at the local hospital.
Hours were invested into making everything back to original condition, more parts found, more studying of photos from over 40 years ago I could find online. I had to do some minor repairs to the front and rear fender before they were ready for paint, and the body pieces needed a matching paint job as well. Time was of the essence for me so I chose to hire a local paint shop to take care of the needed work in this department. I found the original paint code from Suzuki, had everything measured and drawn out to make sure it was an exact match of when the bike was on showroom floors and left it to the shop from there. This turned out to be the biggest mistake of the build. A week later I got the call that they were done and the pieces were ready for pick up. What I saw when I arrived was simply not up to par with what I had in mind. The fork tubes had two runs in them so thick that they looked intentional, the front fender was so thin underneath that you could still see bare metal and worst of all was the main body piece. The white stripe on each side bled and flaked into the blue so terribly it looked as tho it was painted with a blindfold on. I was disappointed to say the least. I simply took this part into my own hands, ordered some custom mixed paint and re did the painting in my garage to get it to my standards.
Things started to take shape and come together nicely. I scored an original gas petcock for more than I care to say from a Suzuki parts horder in England, who after some coaxing admitted to having two brand new suzuki levers and perches for this model still in the original packaging. I paid for what were probably the only two new perch assemblies for this bike left on earth and mounted them as soon as they arrived. One part that eluded me was the proper Suzuki tail light. This model was sold for three years only, 1971/72 and 73. In 71 & 73 the rear tail light was a single round lens mounted to the rear fender, used on many other Suzuki models of the time and easy to find a replacement for. But in 1972 Suzuki mounted a dual lens rear piece which I came to find was much harder to locate. The bike was nearly complete, the factory replica decals were going on, even the warning decals that most kids would strip off as soon as they got home. But I was still missing the era correct lens and assembly. I was going to have to suck it up and put on the single round piece when I struck paydirt and again found an original Suzuki piece still sealed in the original packaging, my double round lens. The final piece was located in the United Kingdom. I paid more than my dad did for the bike at the beginning for the one piece, but that’s the way builds like this go.
With the bike 100% assembled to original Suzuki spec I rolled it out of my garage, had it fire up on the first kick and took it around the block. The oil injection pump was operating, the shifting was smooth, and I was ready to show my dad his 1972 Suzuki Trailhopper.
Written and built by Malcolm Hett.
The finished project on display at Valley Moto Sports in West Kelowna, BC. VMS has been a Suzuki dealer for many years and helped source some of the OEM Suzuki parts.
